Talk about mixed messages. First, Gov. Bobby Jindal frets
that Louisiana's economy is so weak that we must abolish personal and corporate
income taxes. Then, he reassures us our economy is booming.

"The bottom line is that for too long,
Louisiana's workers and small businesses have suffered from having a state tax
structure that is too complex and that holds back economic prosperity," Jindal said in
January, when pitching his failed
tax plan.

But now, it's morning in Louisiana. "Louisiana is one of the best places for businesses to
invest and create jobs," Jindal boasted recently.

So, which is it? Are we so hostile to business that
Jindal's own brother won't live here? Or, is everything marvelous because of Jindal's
stunning achievements?

With his tax plan dead, Jindal must embrace the latter
narrative. True or not, it's a powerful
one, supported by a succession of studies. In May, ChiefExecutive.net declared Louisiana the 11th best state for business. In
July, Pollina Corporate Real Estate ranked us 14th among pro-business
states.

This month, it's Area Development, which concluded
that Louisiana is sixth among the "Top States for Doing Business" in 2013. The editors assert that Louisiana has secured
economic development projects "that are creating more than 63,000 new direct
and indirect jobs and more than $28 billion in new capital investment, along
with hundreds of millions of dollars in new sales for Louisiana's small
businesses."

"This resurgence is largely due to the innovative
economic policies put forth by [Jindal] and the state legislature," the
publication says. "Action items have ranged from removing unconventional
business taxes to reining in government spending, reforming governmental ethics
laws, revamping work force development programs, and implementing landmark
education reforms for Louisiana students."

I'm not sure how the magazine is qualified to
comment, for example, on the correlation of economic development to education
"reforms" enacted only last year and not fully implemented. But that doesn't influence the objective data used
to calculate Louisiana's ranking, does it? Except, one wonders, just how does
the magazine know Jindal created those 63,000 jobs and $28 billion in investments?

I submitted that very question to Gerri Gambale,
Area Development's editor. Her answer was surprising. The data, she told me by
email, "came from the website of Governor Jindal."

Just for kicks, however, I checked the Bureau of
Labor Statistic's website.
If you believe that it's slightly more objective than Jindal's press release
writers, the picture of Louisiana's job creation is not as clear-cut as Jindal and
Area Development proclaim.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when
Jindal took office in January 2008, there were 1,962,000 people employed in Louisiana.
Our unemployment rate was 3.8 percent. In July of 2013, there were 1,947,000
million employed Louisianans, roughly the same as when Jindal became governor.
Our unemployment rate was 7 percent, more than three points higher than when
Jindal took office.

While crediting some recent economic development
successes, the budget project discovered that Louisiana's manufacturing employment
"is down nearly 20 percent since the turn of the century and 10 percent since
the start of the recession, while the lower-paying service sector continues to
grow." In fact, the report says,
"Louisiana manufacturers . . . have eliminated 14,600 net jobs since December
2007 (a 9.6 percent reduction)."

This is clearly a bleaker, more-nuanced picture of
Louisiana's economy than we're getting from Jindal, at least since his tax plan
failed. "Productivity, in terms of the amount of goods and services produced
each working hour, is up 35 percent since 1979 [in Louisiana]," the budget
project found, "but median wages, adjusted for inflation, have grown by only 1
percent since then."

Among the most disturbing findings in the budget
project report is the conclusion that "the share of the [Louisiana] economy
going toward compensation for employees is declining, while the share going to
profits and other uses is increasing."

Let's face facts: our economy is still sputtering
and too many people are still struggling. Blowing up our tax code or shoveling hundreds
of millions in tax dollars to underwrite a few high-profile economic
development projects isn't going to solve our deeper, systemic problems, which
Jindal seems unwilling or unable to address.

That's something that Area Development will never
find in Jindal's press releases.

Robert Mann, a professor at LSU's Manship School of Mass Communication,
can be reached at bob.mann@outlook.com. Follow him at
twitter.com/RTMannJr.